| James Jorgenson, Chair 2000 - 2005 |
| Venable Hall was a treat for the senses. In the cold months, students would compete for the good seats near the radiators in the second floor classrooms. In the warm months, the window air conditioning units were insufficient, so we would pry open the windows.
I am not sure how the grounds crews were always able to plan their mowing activities for the times I would be lecturing, but somehow I managed to speak loudly over the sounds of mowing. As for the floor plan of Venable, the second floor was pure simplicity, but the maze that was the first floor was another matter, made worse by a room numbering system that defied deciphering. But the smells of Venable are what are most memorable; generally a bit humid and musty, but varying with the time of year. And in the spring, the smell of newly mown grass that wafted through the open windows of the classroom. |
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| Thomas Isenhour, Chair 1975 - 1980 |
| During my term as Chairman, the town fire department had a signal, a horn of some sort, that they used to summon units to various campus areas. The hospital was one blast, Venable two blasts, et cetera. I spent a lot of late evenings listening to one blast and waiting for the second, which fortunately never came. We worried a lot about fires in Venable, especially on hot summer nights when the temperature was around the boiling point of ether and other solvents. |
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| Richard Hiskey, Chair 1970 - 1975 |
| When I was Chair of the Department, Lee Pedersen and I set out to see if we could get Venable renovated or replaced. We had little encouragement from the administration but Chancellor Taylor agreed to have the Vice President for Business, John Temple, take a tour of the building. Lee and I took Mr. Temple and other visitors into Laboratory 13-20, which had only one entrance/exit. We opened bottles of HCl and NH3 on the desktop and immediately a cloud of NH4Cl formed. The ventilation was so poor that by the time we reached the back of the lab, you could not see the exit. I explained to Mr. Temple that 40-60 students an afternoon were in this laboratory and he realized that a fire could be disaster. John Temple promised to carry the argument forward for us and that was the beginning of the effort that led to the construction of Morehead building. |
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| Royce Murray, Chair 1980 - 1985 |
| When you live in a hovel, it’s Your Hovel and you cannot help having affection for it. I will always remember how the desks would sometimes fall over and the window blinds would hang at 45 degrees in Venable 244, and Buildings and Grounds would regularly mow under the windows at exactly class time. I remember how the students would sometimes be impressed at how much they could actually learn in that environment; it developed their powers of mental focus. I cherish these memories not wishing Ve244 to return to my life, but for the times with good students and with their learning. |
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| William Little, Chair 1965 - 1970 |
New space added to Venable brought some innovations. For example, every office had two phones. One was an intercom that could also access speakers in the halls for emergencies by dialing a special code. Eventually our graduate students found out about this and began admiring their voices on the system. Arthur Roe, then Chairman, was furious, but calmed down and sent out an apology to the graduate students for underestimating their ingenuity, declaring the following Sunday “Loudspeaker Day,” inviting all to be in good voice and to perform to their heart’s content on the system. What bedlam! Thereafter, the system reverted to its intended purpose only.
Venable Hall at that time did not have air conditioning, but a special room housing a double beam infrared spectrometer with sodium chloride prisms did have “temperature and humidity control.” The cinder block walls were papered with aluminum foil and shellac as a moisture barrier. Window screens were also nonexistent. Imagine how ammonia drew flies in the labs! A favorite sport was shooting down wasps with acetone squirt bottles. Another activity was getting rid of excess sodium metal, even potassium, in the creek behind Venable; hence the moniker “sodium creek” for the stream that is now buried in a culvert. |
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| Joseph Templeton, Chair 1990 - 1995 |
| When stirring the pot for memories, Venable Hall’s shops definitely float to the top. Teaching in Venable was routine, and classrooms do not uniquely define a building. Likewise, Venable’s administrative offices were not very memorable. For me, the foundations of Venable were lower in every sense of the word. It was underneath seemingly superficial teaching and administrative activities, in the bowels of the building, that you would find the real Venable. All you had to do was ask. Bobby, O.J., Jimmy, or Levin could tell you all that you needed to know…and more. Jimmy once gave me a magnificent glass stir bar with a mouse decorating the top. I still have this in my office drawer, by the way. In the conversation that followed among shop personnel I was tossed about on rough seas, so when I had had enough, I turned to Levin Beasley and threatened to wave my new magic glass wand and turn him into a frog. Immediately someone, O.J., if memory serves me right, chimed in, “Go right ahead! Somebody started that transformation last year but only got half way...” |
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| Holden Thorp, Chair 2005 - 2007 |
| On the one hand, it’s remarkable that Chemistry accomplished so much in that run-down building. On the other hand, so much was accomplished there, that it has a storied history. The solution of rebuilding on the same site offered the only mechanism to move forward while acknowledging the importance of Francis Venable and the Venable building. |
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